Patricia Drew

I have lived in Dorchester for many years and am very aware of its ancient heritage. Some time ago I made picture stories that mixed up layers of time and introduced the Dorchester Knight to pagan spirits from an earlier age. So the Henge project is inspiring and full of possibilities.

I trained at Portsmouth College of Art where the evidence of more recent history was all around us. Portsmouth was badly bombed in the War and there was no college building. We were boarded out in studios all over the City with great tutors who said they were teaching us how to see and then taught us how to draw.

I have written and illustrated several books for children. Many stories have some magical device such as a mirror or a cupboard which transports you to another age. Printmakers were making hand prints on cave walls. I do hope when I look into the mirror of my beautifully polished copper plate to start a drypoint, something might happen.

Dancing With Stars, by Patricia Drew

At the time of the summer solstice, at Stonehenge, an astronomer spoke of the monument’s connections with the passage of the stars. There are some beautiful orreries and armillary spheres in the museum in Oxford and I am attracted to circles and ellipses. I imagine our ancestors living, loving, laughing and indeed dancing. I have floated this dance above the Thame, Dorchester’s river gateway to the world, as it flows into the River Thames by the footbridge.